Would you fund another round of RimWorld development?

[Cerus]

If you're talking like an expansion pack, I'd probably pay for a bit more.

Timing would be very important, and the game at that point would need to be "finished" by a reasonable definition.

[UnityIron]

Well this is a tricky one, I'm going to abstain.
But I'll explain why.
Part of me is in the Ayn rand camp, sweat of a mans brow and all that.

The other side of of me thinks this game is great mechanically, but lacks real polish and could do with more content. And in my mind it should be free, as charging for those extra's that would otherwise leave the game feeling incomplete. And make the difference between a great game and a cult classic.

But I feel a poll like this is divisive.
It could encourage a dev to cease adding content that would have been added regardless. But now will charge for it because X% of board members who would represent X% of the community would pay for it.
It would in essence mean that 25%> of the overall revenue would come from the addon, which would be hard to turn down.
But Id say that's a snide thing to do given that thanks to people joining dev on his journey he is now a multi millionaire, for the low low price of 3 years blood sweat and tears.
I say why not make it 4-5 years, make it a cult classic and become a legend?
I don't feel entitled, I just think some tact and perspective needs to be put on this.

[REMworlder]

Tynan's been pretty open about his design approach and philosophies. He's a developer because he enjoys it and because he's good at it.

Let's be super clear about money grabbing. If Tynan wanted to pursue this strategy, he's doing everything wrong. In fact, his first step should have been to go on Steam. But due to quality concerns and because he wants to develop in-game content above all else, Tynan didn't. This is a huge exception to lots of games like Towns and DF-9 that got thrown on Steam and abandoned. If you follow development closely you'll also see there's content Tynan's held back on because he's wanted to stabilize builds, and content he's removed because it turns out it simply wasn't up to his standards.

Tynan's in the industry for the long haul. We don't need to keep quiet for fear of disturbing his dev style or moral compass. Dangling some future DLC dollar over his head isn't going to change what Tynan does. So let's not worry about holding his feet to some obligatory fire because that won't do anything good.

I do wish I could provide a precise roadmap of what will go into the game and when it'll be done. That would be amazing. I just can't because I don't know! So I'm sort of stuck with a game where I know I want to add more stuff, but I really have no idea how much or how long it'll take. I'm not willing to take the huge risk of guessing what'll go in and promising it to everyone; I've been wrong in my predictions way, way too often. So that leaves us here, with people assuming all sorts of future paths, and me constantly trying to manage those unjustified expectations towards something more realistic. I guess this is pretty much the steady state of it; I don't really see a strategic pivot that would solve these problems without creating worse ones.

I'm seeing this with other games too. e.g the No Man's Sky guys seem to already know that they're going to get boned by people's self-assumed expectations of their game. It must be brutal. It's like what happened in this thread times a hundred.

[rexx1888]

i would be more than happy to fund an expansion to RW. However, i want to see RW finished first. i have seen and heard worrying things bandied about by members of the community in regards to Tynans view of completion and i wish to dispell my doubts towards that end first.

Obviously, its hard to make a judgement about that when i havent met the poor fellow, but RW's design is still lacking what i would consider intrinsic mechanics, from z levels to actual pawn relations and the capacity to actually explore the game rather than have all its pieces handed to me. Atm i just consider those things to be on the to do list, but the way ive seen some members of this community natter on without a clue what they are or arent talking about, i find it worrying to throw money out before version 1's release. Dont get me wrong, RW is a great game at the moment for what i paid for it and it was well worth it, but if it becomes what i hope it will ill be more than happy to throw the australian cost at the game, which is a not so normally easy to justify 100$, and then id pay for the expansion too. The game has massive potential, i want to see that paid off and im more than happy to pay for it when i see it.

If i dont see it. Well, ill make it my mission to some day develop that game

[UnityIron]

Tynan's been pretty open about his design approach and philosophies. He's a developer because he enjoys it and because he's good at it.

Let's be super clear about money grabbing. If Tynan wanted to pursue this strategy, he's doing everything wrong. In fact, his first step should have been to go on Steam. But due to quality concerns and because he wants to develop in-game content above all else, Tynan didn't. This is a huge exception to lots of games like Towns and DF-9 that got thrown on Steam and abandoned. If you follow development closely you'll also see there's content Tynan's held back on because he's wanted to stabilize builds, and content he's removed because it turns out it simply wasn't up to his standards.

Tynan's in the industry for the long haul. We don't need to keep quiet for fear of disturbing his dev style or moral compass. Dangling some future DLC dollar over his head isn't going to change what Tynan does. So let's not worry about holding his feet to some obligatory fire because that won't do anything good.

I dig what your saying and yea Tynan is very open about his motivations. And yes he is a very responsible dev with regards to not using steam EA and prizing stability over releases for the hordes.

The point I was making was, 3 years working on a single project will batter your head. Given what is potentially an early get out clause and a sound financial decision offered by a percentage of the community. It will be tempting, It will take some soul searching as the direction in which the game moves from this point will never please everyone.
I never said anything about money grabbing or even insinuated as much. Taking an additional 25%> profit for less work is a sound financial decision, especially as it would add to what ludeon could do next. I look forward to see what Tynan will come out with next and regardless of what happens I would just like to see rimworld go down in history as a cult classic

[akiceabear]

The point I was making was, 3 years working on a single project will batter your head. Given what is potentially an early get out clause and a sound financial decision offered by a percentage of the community. It will be tempting, It will take some soul searching as the direction in which the game moves from this point will never please everyone.

That is a fair point. Earlier in this thread (or another?) we discuss Tynan perhaps focusing more on management of another coder and design of game elements, which he said would free up his time considerably for other creative endeavors. No confirmation that will happen, just saying its been acknowledged.

[BetaSpectre]

I believe the majority of the future ground work will be by modders with Tynan/Iso being the ones to implement it fully in a future update.

If this development money went to Tynan, and a core group of top modders I think that start a new wave of development with everyone having a good time.

Maybe in a few years Rimworld will have 200 Z-Levels xD! With inter steller exploration and combat.